Updating the Pack Pulled Parallel Project

Way back in 2018, I wrote a post about my quest to have at least one card from every pack issued parallel in NASCAR history...but since then, it's stalled out. I either haven't gotten any new parallels, or they were for sets I already had...but I had a bunch waiting for me when I finally shipped my COMC purchase, and here they are, in chronological order of release.

 1995 Traks 5th Anniversary Red

 1995 VIP Cool Blue

 1996 Traks Red

 1996 Viper First Strike

 2000 Wheels High Gear MPH (SN on back)

 2003 Trackside Golden. 2003 Trackside is the only set from that year I didn't open a hobby box of.

2008 Legends Bronze

 2008 Legends Gold

 2009 Showcase 2nd Gear

 2010 Eclipse Gold

 2010 Showcase 2nd Gear

2010 Showcase 3rd Gear

Not bad, 12 new parallels that had not been in my collection previously. The Dale Jr. Select Prizm I showed in the Favorites post was listed as being from a set I lacked, but I believe I picked up one of those Select Prizms at a card show back in the February or March, so it's possible I did even better.

I also converted the list of what I needed to a Page, easily found on the top of Cardboard History, so I don't have to go through all my old posts trying to find it.

I still have to type in the parallels from the late 2018 and all the 2019 sets but I will get to that in due time. I need most of them but there's only a handful of NASCAR sets each year so it won't take too long- I just have other things I need to accomplish right now.

I was planning on scheduling this for noon of the Daytona 500 day, but I forgot. The lengthy rain delays are a good time to get this posted!

Tribute to Wes

Recently, legendary blogger Wes Moore- aka JBF- retired from blogging. I missed most of Wes's heyday as I didn't discover card blog's existence until late 2014. Well, Matt of Sports Card Collectors suggested a Blog Bat-A-Round in honor of Wes and his legendary generosity, and I can absolutely do that!

I don't remember everything I've gotten from Wes, but I have been on the receiving end of his generosity, as I think most bloggers have been.

While I don't have any pictures because I can't remember which people they were, at one point Wes also sent me a large batch of people missing from my collection, which is very much appreciated even if I didn't yet keep track of who sent them to me.

The first card I really distinctly remember getting from Wes was from a Christmas trade-a-thon he ran in 2016. It was an interesting time for me. At that point, I was watching the NHL but had not committed to collecting the cards on a regular basis. Although I was already watching as much as I could, I was still keeping it a secret, to make sure I was truly a fan, and I didn't want to start spreading my limited hobby funds to a sport if it was just a passing fancy. Well, we obviously know how that turned out. So, technically this card from Wes is the first hockey card I added to my collection after becoming a fan of the sport.

I wrote a post about it and the other cards I got from him HERE.

In 2017, I got a huge package of cards from Wes's World Cup of Trading. Seriously, check it out. The key card from me was this towel card of Doug McDermott:

Another card that stands out is the football patch card I didn't even realize I was claiming, but is the coolest card in my football collection.

Finally, in 2018, I took part in Wes's Mega Break and claimed the Knicks, Nets, Rangers and took a couple random slots, if I recall. The cards I won are making their Cardboard History debut right here and now! I am saving the best for last.

I got two college autographs

a Serial Numbered Rusty Wallace insert from 1997 Road to the Cup...

That was followed up with three Rangers relics, this Brendan Shanahan from 2006-07 Black Diamond,

 This Rico Fata from 2001-02 Private stock.

(Interestingly enough, neither material is from a Rangers uniform. Brendan Shanahan's piece is from Detroit and Rico Fata's is from Calgary)

But the biggest card in the bunch...

My first numbered relic of my favorite player in the entire sport! It's from the green parallel of 2015-16 Trilogy.

Thank you Wes, for the generosity over the years!

Racing Champions Cards

I discovered that COMC actually has Racing Champions cards a while back, and I picked up a few I needed this time.

 1989 Davey Allison

 1990 Dale Earnhardt

 1990 Rusty Wallace. This car/card caused quite a stink in 1990. RC issued it with the proper Miller Genuine Draft sponsorship but people with nothing better to do with their life whined about it so they censored all the beer sponsored cards after that.

In 1994 and 1995 Racing Champions and Maxx worked together to issue the To the Maxx series. There were five series of cars (all using the Chrome technology) and one series of Trucks, which were printed on clear plastic with a pinkish sheen. Unfortunately...the truck cards have gotten sticky over the years, as did the 1995 Crown Chrome set using the same technology. They are some of the few cards I actually store in plastic, this was scanned through the penny sleeve it arrived in.

Just because it's cool, here's the back of the card. Skinner would win the 1995 Truck Championship.

NASCAR Box #2 Breakdown

I've finished going through the cards my friend sent me a couple of weeks ago, totally unexpectedly. And what a box it was! I ended up getting 1079 new cards, which is my 6th most all-time for one day. (the first box he sent me is in the top 5)
My records aren't matching up, and I hate when they don't match in the three places I store them. But it may really be off by a card or two, because the Database shows I have one card, while my paper records- which I based my collection on the Database off of- shows I don't. But I've long said the numbers are probably off and that I just use them as a baseline anyway.

While the first box had more cards in it, this one completed more sets- 8 of them, all from 1995-97. Also, I completed a parallel and three inserts, which is very rare for me to do so. The inserts I completed include 1996 Ultra Champion's Club (5 cards), 1996 Upper Deck Virtual Velocity (15 cards) and this one, from 1997 Upper Deck Victory Circle, at 10 cards...

It's as sparkly as it looks in hand. I pulled one of these when it was new and now, 20 years later, I've completed it.

While I didn't complete this set, the largest percentage of increase was 1996 Ultra. It is a 202 card set, and I previously had 11 of them. I now have 201 of them! I'm only missing one common card, #145, Joe Gibbs. Amazingly, despite Ultra being my favorite brand, I've NEVER completed an Ultra flagship. I have completed the Ultra Power Rangers movie set, and with this box I completed the Ultra Update, but standard Ultra still eludes me. I think I may have finished 1999-00 in my COMC pending shipment but until I get it in hand it doesn't count. Maybe someday I will finish one. Heck, maybe if I get more than 21 cents in my COMC account I will pick up the missing Gibbs and complete this one! Wait a minute, I just realized I completed 1992-93 Ultra on April 1st! I forgot when I typed this up. I remembered before publishing but I decided to leave the paragraph anyway. But I am going to have to rewrite some of my April trade recap before I publish it!

Here are an example of each of the sets I completed. The number listed is how many cards make up the set.

1996 SpeedFlix, 87 cards

1996 VIP, 54 cards

1995 Assets, 50 cards. Rare to see an uncensored Bud car.

1996 Finish Line, 100 cards

1996 Press Pass, 120 cards

1996 Maxx, 100 cards

1997 Ultra Update, 100 cards

1995 Optima XL, 60 cards. I had only 1 before the box arrived!

SpeedFlix is a set I loved since new and worked hard on completing from retail, but fell short. Assets was a set I never had much of. 1996 Press Pass was the one I was closest to, I needed only about 20 of 120 cards. The big one here is 1996 Maxx. Maxx was my favorite brand and was in operation from 1988-96. This was their final flagship. I have now completed 1989, 90, 91, 92, 94 and 96. And I have a factory sealed 1988 Factory set but I don't want to open it. Completing 1995 and 1993 are priorities. I really want to get a factory set of 1993, which I know are out there. 1995 was two series and does not have a factory set that I know of.

Unfortunately, they were double paged, and most of them got damaged, but 1996 Ultra Update took the most damage.

You can see where this card stuck to the other card and damaged both of them.Everything that looks like snow in the scan is damage.

Here's the parallel I completed, 1997 Race Sharks First Bite. (45 cards). This is only, off the top of my head, the third parallel I've ever completed, and one of those was a factory set exclusive, so that's a pretty rare accomplishment for me.

 Race Sharks was such a pointless set, photos of drivers superimposed in front of a picture of the shark, but it's late 1990s so I love it anyway.

Now, here's just some scans of cards from this box that needed to be posted to the Trading Card Database.

I even managed to get two new people for my collection, one who I was aware of the fact that I was missing him...

and one that slipped through the cracks and I didn't even know I should have been looking for! No matter how good I think my records are, there's still mistakes.

And, like the last box he sent me, I took screencaps of my collection totals on the Trading Card Database both before I entered the new cards...

and after. You can see that some drivers really went up by a large number!